Its been a while since I’ve made an update though I only really bother when I find something worth sharing. As such, I stumbled across this today, which turned out to be a very interesting read. It turns out that some time back a guy stumbled across an old cellophane wrapped book promoting the making of SF2. Opun opening it to his dismay it turned out to only really feature images and information that everyone has seen or read before – until he turned to the final pages:

I didn’t really know what to expect, since the book was cellophaned shut. Opening it at home, I found that the bulk of the book was full-color plates of the same SFII production art that has appeared in all eight hundred million Street Fighter II art books out there. But the last few pages, a black and white section, turned out to be the most fascinating, especially since I had never seen anything like it before. It was filled with early sketches of SFII designs and characters that were completely different from the final game. And through the magic of digital image scanning technology coupled with the World Wide Internet, now you can share this joy with me.

Which gives a bit of a run down plus high resolution scans of his find. Oddly, I recall seeing the Vega design sketch in a ‘Computer and Video Games’ magazine from the early ’90s. I always figured this was a much cooler design for Vega but in the end his final lithe design makes him quite unique and brought a new personality to the game. What I find most interesting are the discarded stage designs – some of which cropped up again in subsequent SF2 and SF3 games.

I only just noticed a combination of two things with Tokido’s game. He chooses the dark blue+grey uniform all the time – however when he has the chance he often opts for the rail yard stage. This stage reflects a similar colour palette to this particular Akuma colour which perhaps offers a (cheeky) advantage by way of making him subtly more difficult to see.

How is this performed? After a light kick tatsu, p-link c.hk~mk after Akuma bounces back to the ground after connecting the tatsu. There is a slight difference in leniency between various characters – Fuerte for example can be tricky to connect this with whereas the window against Balrog is actually quite large. This is likely due to a combination of hitbox sizes and the speed at which characters fall to the ground after the tatsu. Here’s Tokido using it frequently in a Honda match:
Leniency can also changed if the opponent is pushed quite far back if the lead-in combo to connect the tatsu is lengthy. Practising this will help develop a familiarity as to when it is possible to reliably connect.